Alps

2. Luck or Cunning? 36. Voir également Life and Habit, 304 «... New ideas cannot be fused with old, save gradually and by patiently leading up to them in such a way as to admit of a sense of continued identity between the old and the new ». Et aussi Erewhon Revisiled, 135 : « However cataclysmic a change of national opinion may appear to be, people will find means of bringing the new into more or less conformity with the old, »

Cette idée n’est pas essentiellement originale. Carlyle l’a exprimée avant Butler : « It is true the English Legislature, like the English people, is of slow temper; essentially conservative. In our wildest periods of reform, in the Long Parliament itself, you notice always the invincible instinct to hold fast by the Old; to admit the minimum of New, to expand, if it is possible, some old habit or method, already found fruitful, into new growth for the new need, It is an instinct worthy of all honour; akin to all strength and all wisdom. The Future hereby is not dissevered from the Past, but based continuously on it; grows with all the vitalities of the Past, and is rooted deep into the beginnings of us. » Past and Present, Book IV, ch. III (p. 365 de l'édition Ward Lock et Co).